C L A S S I C A L M U S I C D A I L Y Photographer's Insight — Issue 134, 1 March 2020 Michael Whitefoot: As you look at the fifty-two galleries of images taken at the 2019 Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in the UK, spare a thought for the shoe leather and sixteen-hour days the photographer puts in so that the images are processed and available for the press office and concert reviewers to use at the end of each day. The planning starts as soon as the Festival programme is finalised, and I can see times and venues. Sometimes it's a walk and other times a car journey between venues and on the rare occasion when two events are at the same time, a decision must be made on which to photograph. It all starts with a visit to each venue to see where I can position myself without being seen, or at the very least where I Michael Whitefoot in Hereford Cathedral. will not distract from the performance! Photo © 2018 Michael Whitefoot Smaller venues are much easier than a Cathedral, as often I can stand at the back with everyone in front of me looking at the performers. However, the Gloucester (or indeed Hereford or Worcester) Cathedral is another matter altogether! READ MORE ... ENSEMBLE — EXQUISITELY BEAUTIFUL — MUSIC FOR PERCUSSION Ron Bierman: Composer Chou Wen-chung, who died recently at the age of ninety-six, was honored at the most recent 'red fish blue fish' percussion concert. Chou's works have been performed by major orchestras throughout the world, and he mentored many who have gone on to successful careers of their own. Tan Dun and Chen Yi are among his best known students. Tan once called him 'the godfather of Chinese contemporary music'. Steven Schick founded 'red fish blue fish' and remains its artistic director and conductor. The group, made up of University of California, San Diego grad students, performs on the UCSD campus and travels for concerts across the United States and abroad. Schick is Distinguished Professor of Music at the university. An extraordinary percussionist, he has served as artistic director of the Swiss Centre International de Percussion de Genève, was the percussionist for New York's Bang on a Can All-Stars for a decade and is a Consulting Artist in Percussion at the Manhattan School of Music. He was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society's Hall of Fame in 2014. Performing Michael Pisaro's ricefall at UCSD Pulitzer-Prize composer Roger Reynolds began the evening with a heartfelt description of Chou Wen-Chung's influence on himself and other modern composers. That set the stage for the performance of Chou's Echoes from the Gorge, a piece for percussion quartet for which Schick was joined by James Beauton, Fiona Digney and Garrett Mendelow. The quartet's array of percussion instruments included tiny bells, large gongs, bongos, a bass drum, an assortment of cymbals, wooden blocks and more. At one point I counted fourteen mallets, moving in such a blur I might have missed a few. As Schick tapped, stroked or hammered, subtle hand movements cued the other performers to ensure that complex cross-rhythms and often exotic coloring were executed cleanly. The percussion tour de force is divided into eleven brief segments with names such as 'Drifting Clouds' and 'Old Tree by the Cold Spring'. Echoes from the Gorge was brought to a frenzied climax of light-speed mallets with 'Falling Rocks and Flying Spray'. READ MORE ... READ THE LATEST REVIEWS BY RON BIERMAN ... Patrick Maxwell: The Italian operas that have enchanted audiences for almost two hundred years help to mark an important point in the artistic development of the nineteenth-century. Verdi, whose works formed the backbone to all of what followed, represented a style firmly based in romantic ideals. Puccini and his contemporaries were the first purveyors of the Italian verismo style, which could be seen as in tune with the realistic trend in literature; opera created a platform to show the hardships of contemporary or historical society. Puccini's work shows both a development in music temperament, which is unsurprising at the turn of the twentieth-century, and a more developed storyline. The Vienna Opera House, despite not perhaps having the architectural finesse that Covent Garden possesses, is still a spectacle to behold, and the city of Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler and Schoenberg is still full of the aura of brilliance. The gargantuan orchestra, directed by Marco Armiliato, gave a sound that was too verbose, emphasizing to a higher degree than needed the numerous leitmotifs to introduce characters throughout the orchestra. Austrian soprano Martina Serafin Tosca was well evoked in the solemn and reliable tones of Martina Serafin, accompanied by the delinquent painter Cavaradossi, played by Aleksandrs Antonenko. Antonenko grew into his part as the performance went on, with his final pleas expertly carried out, especially in the extraordinary love aria 'E lucevan le stelle'. The sinister Baron Scarpia, played by Željko Lučić, was the clearly malevolent force he should be throughout, and his evil desires were expertly performed. READ MORE ... READ THE LATEST REVIEWS BY PATRICK MAXWELL ... Giuseppe Pennisi: Eugene Onegin by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky has returned to Rome after nineteen years. It is an absolute masterpiece of theatre in music of the late nineteenth century. The production is by the Canadian Opera Company; it was conceived for the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. It is directed by Robert Carsen; the scenes and costumes are by Michael Levine, the lighting — an essential element of the production — is by Jean Kalman. I was at the opening night on 18 February 2020 in a packed theater. The Onegin performances in Rome are dedicated to Mirella Freni, who recently passed away and was a great female performer in the 2001 production. This is the fifth time that the work has been seen and heard in Rome. A scene from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Photo © 2020 Yasuko Kageyama Sixth of Tchaikovsky's twelve operas, Onegin has only recently had frequent performances in Italy. At La Scala in Milan, for example, there have been just five productions with a total of about thirty performances. The debut was conducted by Toscanini in 1900 and, in January 2006, the last production was imported from the Glyndebourne Festival (where it was premiered in 1994). The opera, however, has been staged in almost all the major Italian opera houses in the last thirty years, mainly in the staging, grand but traditional, produced by the Teatro Comunale di Bologna in 1991. The Bologna production was built on the baritone Paolo Coni, whose short season represented one of the highest moments. Dalibor Jenis has effectively played Onegin in Trieste, Rome and elsewhere. Mirella Freni has been for decades the undisputed and most moving Tatiana. Many Italian editions, and also that of La Scala in 2006, use the score (with a reduced orchestra stave) conceived by Tchaikovsky in 1879 for a few performances (by young performers) at the Moscow Conservatory. The Rome Opera House staging uses the 1885 edition (for large orchestra and experienced voices) for the Bolshoi Theater. READ MORE ... Giuseppe also listens to Beethoven string quartets in Rome, marking this year's Beethoven anniversary, to music by Gesualdo, and visits Bologna for a performance of Tristan und Isolde. He also experiences Bruno Maderna's Hyperion, performed to mark the Italian composer's centenary. READ THE LATEST REVIEWS BY GIUSEPPE PENNISI ... Mike Wheeler: As Storm Ciara headed towards the UK, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier were in Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall, whipping up a storm (or, rather, several) of their own — Nottingham, UK, 8 February 2020. To start, they made their own selection of five movements from the two suites put together from Bizet's L'Arlésienne score. In the Pastorale from Suite No 2, the flute and cor anglais episode had an appealingly rustic quality. From Suite No 1 we heard the Carillon, which reflected all the transparency of Bizet's scoring, a Minuet both earthy and delicate, by turns, and a touching account of the strings-only Adagietto. Then it was back to the second Suite for a Farandole of irresistible vitality ... ... The second half began with Aeriality by the orchestra's Composer in Residence, Anna Thorvaldsdottir. A mesmerising thirteen-minute sonic landscape to get happily lost in, it offers a mosaic of tiny sound-images, from percussive sounds both hard — including snap pizzicatos Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir (born 1977) for the cellos and basses, like twigs snapping — and soft — rustlings and murmurings on the edge of audibility, to trickling figures on wind and piano, gentle string glissandos, and quiet but insistent pulsing rhythmic phrases. The emergence of more warmly lyrical string writing towards the end was exhilarating in its own quiet way. I simply didn't want it to end, and the orchestra and conductor did their composer (who took a well-deserved bow) proud. READ MORE ... Mike also listens to Cavendish Winds, and and to Swiss pianist Jean-Sélim Abdelmoula. READ THE LATEST REVIEWS BY MIKE WHEELER ... LATEST CONCERT REVIEWS LISTINGS OF FORTHCOMING CONCERTS FORTHCOMING FESTIVALS CLASSICAL MUSIC NEWS — PREMIO CANTELLI 2020 After a forty-year absence, and to celebrate one hundred years since the birth of Guido Cantelli, the great conductor from Novara in North-West Italy, the conducting competition that was created in his memory comes to life again and takes on a strong international connotation while focusing on the younger generations. The competition has its natural home in the Teatro Coccia of Novara in Italy.